Going to Aruba with iPhone

macrumors regular

So as the subject says, I am flying to Aruba and bringing my phone with me. I have never left the states with my iPhone thus far and I was curious as to what precautions I should take. I'll set my phone on airplane mode midflight (I don't even know what that really does). Anything else? I don't want to be charged for roaming and such when I am there. As always, everyone's help is greatly appreciated.

macrumors demi-god

I'll set my phone on airplane mode midflight (I don't even know what that really does).

Click to expand...

Just a note:

Airplane mode turns off the radios (phone, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS) so you won't interfere with navigation or other electronic devices. (You should hear the stories from pilots of older airliners that have to listen to GSM buzz over their headphones the whole flight. Not nice.)

You'll need to put it in airplane mode when they close the door for takeoff, and turn it off. You'll be able to turn back on just the iPod stuff at 10,000 feet. During descent, off again.

thread startermacrumors regular

There's a part of the island that is AT&T, but it's still international roaming and you will get a big bill. I think they hit me up for $475 last time I was there even though it's an AT&T network.

Go read up on how to shut all the data off. If I were to go again, I would probably just delete the email accounts off the phone and re-add them when you get back. I wouldn't try and use web either.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice, maybe I can just set my e-mail to manual rather than check every 15 minutes. My question is moreso about texting and maybe one phone call. Would I get a high charge for that? I want to keep my phone with me just in case of an emergency. I want to be in contact if my family needs something although there isn't much I can do if I'm in Aruba.

macrumors member

Data
Make sure Data Roaming in setting is turned off.
Also turn off Push services.
This will ensure that there is no data being sent or received by your phone.
I just returned from an international trip and this worked for me.

Phone Calls
If you make/recieve phone calls you will be charged roaming charges as per the tarriff for the country you are calling from.

macrumors Nehalem

Like they said make sure Data Roaming in settings is turned off.
A few phone calls with international roaming might cost you but if you start browsing the net alot you'd be in a huge surprise.
if you want to be sure call AT&T and find out exactly how much each call will cost you or each KB of data.

macrumors newbie

Ok,
I went to Aruba in November with my iPhone 3g. Call ATT and have an international plan put on the phone as well as an international Data plan. I did this.. My bill was an extra 100 dollars because of the plan, but I got service and made about 10 calls out over the week. Was good to know I had it in emergency..... Data was spotty, but worked decent.... I stayed in the Marriot Surf Club...

macrumors 65816

My 2 cents is to turn data roaming off along with push just in case and also leave the phone in airplane mode most of the time only turning it on to check voicemail/texts and to make calls/send texts. If you happen to have free WiFi (you may be surprised, I was in Mexico a while back) then happily use that. Tip: Have the phone in airplane mode and then turn WiFi on, that leaves the phone completely off so you can't accidentally slip to GPRS/EDGE/3G as trust me you don't want those roaming charges, when I roam for work it is not unheard of to rack up thousand dollar monthly bills overseas!

MacRumors attracts a broad audience
of both consumers and professionals interested in
the latest technologies and products. We also boast an active community focused on
purchasing decisions and technical aspects of the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Mac platforms.